


Caring for a Friend

by Tanist



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Illness, Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-06-28 08:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15703704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanist/pseuds/Tanist
Summary: This is the story mentioned in several other tales in this AU, in which Emil nearly dies of a rat bite.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The technique Lalli uses in this story is one which turns up in various forms among shamanic healing traditions in our world. I am presuming that it also applies in the Minnaverse.

At first the bite didn't seem to be a problem. The brindled-white rat was just a rat, not obviously infected, probably immune. It was big, the size of a well-grown cat, but rats sometimes grew that big when there was plenty of food and nothing disturbed their nests. It had surged out of a side drain into the main stormwater tunnel, ran up Emil's back before anyone could react, closed its teeth through Emil's cheek, leaped down and was fleeing when two thrown knives transfixed it. 

Sigrun had flushed the bite with clean water and applied a dressing from her pocket first-aid kit while Lalli retrieved his blade and Sigrun's, wiped off the rat's blood, quickly returned Sigrun's blade to her, then checked their surroundings for trolls and beasts, or more rats. He found nothing, but this whole area made him feel deeply uneasy. Lalli couldn't say why. It was no explanation to say that the old storm drains felt in some way unclean, but they did. All the old drains stank, but the one the rat had leaped from had a subtle greasy underscent that troubled him in a way he couldn't clearly define. 

Once Emil stopped swearing they went on, following an old maintenance map of the drains below the University buildings, looking for an entrance that should eventually lead to a manhole going up into one of the service buildings near the University medical library. 

 

By the second day after the bite it was obvious that Emil was in trouble. Mikkel had cleaned and disinfected the wound when they returned to the tank, but the infection had already entered Emil’s system, and he began to run a fever. After his second night spent tossing and muttering in uneasy, pain-wracked halfsleep, Sigrun refused to take him back to the library for the day’s scavenging, heading out in the early morning accompanied only by Lalli, and Mikkel confined him to bed for the day, rousing him at regular intervals for water and antibiotics. By evening Emil was burning with fever and quite delirious. The heat and pain of his injury seemed out of all proportion to its apparent severity, and since the antibiotics Mikkel had used seemed to have no effect, he sent Lalli out to hunt for herbs. Lalli came back with the garlic-scented leaves and bulbs of ramsons, a few daisy leaves scavenged from under the snow and a handful of plantain roots. Mikkel made a compress of these mixed with some of their scant supply of honey and salt, heated it and applied it to Emil’s wound, with little result. There was no more he could do.

 

Herbs and spells had failed. There was one more thing to try. Grandma had shown him how, so that the hard-won knowledge should not be lost from the family. 

A few times he had helped the older mages back at Keuruu to work similar healing spells, when physical remedies and household magic had been insufficient but life still persisted. Using that magic had always been risky, even before the Rash illness had flooded the Dreamworld with hostile spirits, and now the attempt could be deadly. But Lalli saw no other choice.

Sometimes, when the healing powers of a body had been almost defeated by some illness or injury, the soul escaped ahead of death, and fled. It might happen in reaction to extreme pain, or to despair or grief, or because the patient accepted that there could be no healing, and only desired to die. But once that happened, the only hope of recovery for the physical body was for the errant soul to be tracked down and called back to their body by a skilled mage. This task was dangerous - the Dreamworld was dangerous in itself, the call of death was strong around a dying person, and the way back to one’s body easily obscured. Lalli knew beyond doubt that his unaided skill would not be enough. But this was Emil. He knew that he had to try.

There were ways to make the process safer and easier - herbs, patterns of knots or music, the help of another mage, but none of those were here. He had only his breath, his words and his will. Those would have to serve. With that settled in his mind, Lalli lay down beside his friend. He clasped Emil's limp hand firmly, closed his eyes and concentrated on the pattern of his breathing.....

When Reynir came into the bunkroom a few minutes later, carrying a bowl of stew for Lalli, that was how he found them. 

Emil's restless movements and muttering had stopped. His skin still flushed and paled, but the rattling of his breath had quieted to a thready whisper. Reynir had to listen carefully to be sure that the Swedish boy was still breathing at all. 

Lalli sprawled half across Emil's bunk, lost in what Reynir at first thought to be the sleep of absolute exhaustion. Then the Icelander noticed that Lalli's breathing was not the soft erratic breaths of deep sleep, but a controlled pattern: shallow breaths, widely and regularly spaced. And his body lay as empty as would the sleeve of a discarded coat flung  
down on the bunk: too still, with a limpness, a sense of absence, beyond that of ordinary sleep. Only his grip on Emil's hand had not slackened.

Reynir took one look at them and stepped softly across to his own bed. Onni. He had to find Onni. Now.

**************************************************


	2. Caring for a Friend Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his attempt to track and rescue Emil's wandering soul Lalli goes into one of the most dangerous situations a mage can face.

CARING FOR A FRIEND

 

Sigrun came into the bunkroom quietly, her face set. Mikkel had not been optimistic about Emil’s chances, muttering about something he had read in the notes of the last researcher left alive in the hospital complex, written ten years after Year 0, probably as she was dying, about remnant bioweapons and mutated lab rats with high intelligence and a lasting grudge against humanity. If her righthand warrior really was dying from this stupid infection, she should be with him. As she stepped in and felt the sense of emptiness in the room she froze in place, then stepped back again and gently closed the door. The bodies of all three boys still seemed to be breathing, but wherever their spirits were, it wasn't here. Sigrun herself had no magic, but she surely knew the feel of its presence. She left the mages to work in peace, whatever they were doing. 

*****************************************

Lalli stood up from his sprawled body and looked carefully around the tank. Somewhere there should be a thread connecting Emil's body to Emil's wandering spirit. If he couldn't find it quickly.....no, there it was, a flickering streak of pale fire, emerging from Emil's body around the solar plexus, hanging in the air and passing through the wall of the tank. Lalli frowned at it: a strong young man such as Emil had been before this infection should have a thick, pulsing rope of light connecting body to spirit.

Lalli laid a tentative hand on the cord of fire. It shuddered, the light gathering for a moment in a pattern that seemed defensive, then steadying, almost as if Emil’s soul recognised his touch. He began to murmur a runo:

“Friend of body and of spirit  
Come now back from your far wandering  
By the fire that is your nature  
By the friendship that I bear you  
By the futures in my vision:  
Cease your wandering in the Dreamworld.   
Come now back from your far wandering!  
Lest I show your gods defiance,  
Lest I must be forced to fetch you.”

 

Emil moaned. His body twitched briefly, then relaxed again into deep unconsciousness. The cord of fire thinned again to a mere thread. Lalli sighed. That had been worth trying, but he had not really expected success, not with how weak Emil felt. He wished for Onni’s help, but Onni was far, far away, and Lalli had no way to reach him. There were still two methods he could try. Without the help and support of another mage he risked his own life, perhaps even his own soul, but he could see no alternative. When he considered his next acts he trembled with a primal fear, but still set himself to the shaping of a spell he had never before even considered using - a spell to speak with the gods of another people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let us hope that Emil's gods are receptive to a plea for help from a wandering stranger. Otherwise they will both be stranded in the Dreamworld until their bodies die.


	3. Caring for a Friend Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lalli invokes gods that are way beyond his area of expertise.

CARING FOR A FRIEND CHAPTER THREE:

 

Lalli followed the cord of fire through the wall of the tank. On the other side of the metal the landscape had changed. They had been parked in the grounds of the University Hospital, on what had probably once been a carpark edged by neat grassy lawn, now a rough meadow.The ruined Danish city was gone. Instead of the flat Danish landscape he stood amid jagged peaks of lichen-crusted rock, above a vast expanse of dark forest, under a glowing dark-blue sky rimmed with anvil-shaped clouds - thunderheads, he realised. He took a few steadying breaths, then began to sing:

“You the Gods whose world I walk in:   
Smite me not for my intrusion!   
I am Lalli, mage of Suomi,  
Seeking for a soul who wanders.

He I seek is of your people.   
I accept your right to take him.  
But I beg you, of your kindness,  
Of your care for all your peoples,   
Of your care for this world’s future:  
Let me guide him to his body.

By the power that is in me,  
By my gods that gave it to me,  
By the Sight that guides me truly:  
I do swear that he is needed!

Needed, this young hero Emil,  
Young indeed, and yet untested:  
He is needed - I have seen it   
That we all may have a future,  
That I live to guide your landfolk  
Far from here, for their survival!”

Lalli paused, shaking. He was aware of louring presences around him, of attention focused on him, beginning to turn from curious to hostile. Yet he felt that he had no choice but to go on.

“Yes, I know I venture boldly.  
Yes, I feel the lightning building.  
Well I know I am a stranger   
In your lands all uninvited.  
Yet for sake of both our peoples  
For the future still abuilding  
For the life of your young hero  
For the great deeds yet before him:   
Search your world with godly foresight,  
Search the secrets of your future -   
Give me back my dear companion!”

Lalli was suddenly aware of a figure taking shape before him. A tall, whitehaired old man, leaning on a staff, dressed as a traveller in rough grey cloak and battered hat, one eye covered by a leather patch. The other eye, glowing with the blue of lightning, glared at him as the god leaned down to consider this small intruder. On each of his shoulders perched a large, glowering raven. In a voice like stone sliding on stone, he spoke:

“Bold you are, unwary little wanderer.  
Truly do my folk say: “Every man is mortal”.  
Even mages out of Suomi.  
Bold indeed, but loyal in friendship.  
Loyalty to a friend is virtue.  
For his sake who holds your friendship  
In the Well I’ll scry his future.  
Fear me, if you speak not truly.”

The tall grey figure turned away and vanished.


	4. Caring For a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lalli sees. So does Odin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who have read 'An Historical Document' and 'A Few of Mikkel's Secrets', and who might, at some point in the future when I finally put it up, read 'Vakka Festival', may now have some idea of what is going on.

CARING FOR A FRIEND: CHAPTER FOUR

Under the looming thunderclouds Lalli waited. He knew better than to move from the spot where the god had left him, but still his gut churned with impatience and fear. He knew that every second in which Emil’s soul wandered lost between worlds might be the end of his friend, either from encountering some devouring or hostile spirit, or stumbling into some part of the Dreamworld from which there was no way out. If enough time passed the tenuous link between body and spirit might simply fade, leaving Emil’s soul unanchored and unable to find the way back to animate his body again. If that happened, the body too would inevitably fade into slow death. 

He was beginning to feel the pull of his own body trying to draw him back when a black wing brushed his face and a harsh voice croaked “Come!”. Lalli followed the raven. It led him through the jagged peaks of rock to the roots of a great tree. Between two gnarled roots a spring of water rose, bubbling up like starlight made liquid, then spilling into a shallow bowl of stone edged with green mosses. The surface of the water in the bowl looked still at first glance, but under the surface it seemed to swirl with images, drawing the eye and the mind……

And by the spring stood the god, his head bent, his great shoulders shaking. 

“Well, little mage, you have the right of it.  
Know that the gods themselves cannot fight fate.  
You have risked life and soul to find your friend,  
But all folk stand in danger if you fail -  
The gods, the elves and other fey, and men.  
It seems great heroes grow when they are needed  
And from the tamed lands, strangely, one has grown.  
And he is needed, not by you alone,

His soul has been a mighty one before.  
It will be so again. The two of you:  
Hero-companions meeting down the ages,  
Side by side battling for the sake of all,  
Spending your lives that all might have a future,  
Forever answering the hero-call. 

Now I will give you aid. I ask, in turn,  
You save my people when their forests burn!”

For a moment Lalli swayed on his feet. The swirling pool drew insistently on his eyes and mind, although he knew its magic was not for him. The god’s presence was like a weight on his subtle body and his mind. Yet from somewhere he found the strength to look into that lightning-coloured eye and say: “Yes, god of Emil’s people. If it costs my own life, my own soul, I will do it. I will save your folk.” Then his own Sight rolled through him, and he said, without knowing why: “I will do it, and gladly. But it is Emil who will find the means to make it happen. Many lifetimes in the future, we will save them. Help us to find one another. And soon, when we are back in Denmark, tell Linden and Gale that they must watch for me.” 

Lalli stopped speaking, puzzled. He had not the first idea who this ‘Linden and Gale’ might be. He did not understand the expressions crossing the face of the god, but he thought one of them might be a sudden shock of comprehension. The god gestured sharply to his ravens, and both flew away so fast that Lalli barely saw them go. Before he could ask a question Emil stumbled into the clearing, pushed by two insistent ravens. 

Lalli grasped Emil’s hand. He managed to articulate “Thank you, god!” before he was suddenly back in his body.


	5. Caring For A Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reynir's prayers are answered, and a new alliance is proposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events begin to come together.

CARING FOR A FRIEND: Chapter Five

Reynir searched for Onni. He could find no trace of Onni’s Haven, which frightened him in unexpected ways. For as long as Reynir had been consciously aware of his ability to navigate the Dreamworld, he had taken it for granted that whatever he sought he would quickly find. The talent seemed simply to be innate in him, whether it was a natural attribute of his magic, a sign of favour of the gods, or something he did not yet understand, he had no idea. But it was alarming and disorienting to be searching for something and to be completely unable to find it. 

After several hours of seeking Onni, both by wandering across the Dream Sea, following his feet and the track of his fylgja, and by calling aloud for Onni’s help, methods which had never failed him before, Reynir began to be seriously afraid. 

When his wanderings finally took him back to his own Haven, he sank down on a rock, put his head in his hands and began to pray. He was so focused on his efforts to reach his own gods and to hold back his tears of rage, fear and frustration that he almost failed to hear the soft voice.

“Reynir! My little mage, my chosen one! Don’t be frightened, child - if you hold your courage and do your brave best, you may yet save them all.”

Freya! Somehow he knew her voice - perhaps from dreams he had experienced in childhood, dreams in which he had trustingly reached up his round baby arms to the tall figure in the cat-drawn chariot, knowing that he was loved, feeling sure that his questions would be truly answered. 

“Goddess! Thank you!” Reynir whispered. “I am seeking Onni. The Finnish mage. Lalli’s cousin, Tuuri’s brother. I must find him. I know that Onni is a healer as well as a warrior, and he may be able to save Emil. I know that you know who all of these folk are, because I have named them to you often in my prayers. And I believe that Emil belongs to you all, even though he is himself one of the savage Swedes, who keep no gods. Please, save him! 

Lalli has sent out his soul to seek for Emil’s soul, as healers did in the old sagas. I did not know that the Finns had this skill, but somehow I know that this is what Lalli has done! He seeks only to save one of your people. Please aid him! I fear for both Lalli and Emil, and they are my friends as well as my team mates.” Reynir found himself again near tears.

After a long pause the goddess answered. “I…..see! I had wondered why the All-Father was scrying in the Well, and had then sent out his ravens to seek a human soul, a short while ago. Now I understand. I saw the young man whom he sought - a golden youth with the hero-mark upon him. And the Finnish youth for whom he deigned to do this, who looks to be another hero. That young Finnish mage certainly does not lack courage, to seek out the gods of another people for help in finding the soul of his friend. 

I wonder if it is time for another alliance among the gods? Reynir, I am sure you heard the old tales as a child. Do you recall how my brother and I made alliance with the Æsir, long ago? Of how I brought to the Æsir the gift of magic among my other skills? I have had dreams and visions of the future for several years now, of new magic, new dangers, and a new world. Perhaps this is the beginning of those coming times. Perhaps your Onni is more important than you know. I need an ambassador to his Finnish gods. Let us go together to seek him.” 

Reynir took her offered hand and vaulted into the chariot.


End file.
